Where's God amid troubles?' to be topic of reflection

Margaret Leathem, chaplain at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's campus parish, Christ Sun of Justice, will try to answer that question when she addresses adult faith formation teams and others interested in faith formation from around the Albany Diocese.

Sponsored by the diocesan Office of Evangelization and Catechesis, the evening of reflection is the second annual gathering of its kind in a year-old ministry that seeks to provide adults with ongoing faith formation.

Uncertainty

"At first, I thought of calling my talk, 'Living Through Uncertain Times,'" she said. "But the word 'through' didn't quite define what I wanted to convey."

She said that "in" is better in delineating a sense of the here and now, when the challenge of finding God is of vital importance.

"We must hold on to our hope in God, no matter how uncertain and unsure we are of our future," she emphasized. "Since God's love is unconditional, it becomes a certainty for us when everything else becomes uncertain. God's love is always a sure thing. That's all we really can rely on when we don't know what life has in store for us, or when our security has suddenly been stripped away."

Personal trial

"There were times when my family didn't know if I would be coming home at all," she said. "I learned that I could rely on God when there was nothing or no one else. That's what I see as the spiritual challenge for us as Catholics: to be able to accept that God really is in the uncertain times of our lives as well as in the situations that we are sure of."

She said that each person is hit differently by uncertainty, citing last year's terrorist attacks as an example of how people's lives can be changed forever in an instant. Because each individual has different ways of reacting and different coping mechanisms, she said, it is important for a person to know where to turn when all resources seem to have failed.

"Scripture tells us that God creates order," she said. "In these challenging times, our faith calls us to trust in the love of our Creator."

The evening of reflection will be held Oct. 2, 7 p.m., at the Chapel + Cultural Center of the Rensselaer Newman Foundation, at the RPI campus in Troy. The program will have several components besides Mrs. Leathem's presentation, including guided meditation, quiet time for reflection and prayer, and a discussion period. To register, call contact Carol Pickel, 453-6630, or e-mail [email protected].

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